I’ve been thinking of food a lot lately as we prepare to open a big new juried exhibition at 23 Sandy called FEAST! This show is all about food and book art and has some mouth-watering books! My own book for the show is still floating in the air between my ears and hopefully will get out before the opening on May 10th. In the meantime, here’s a sneak peek at what’s percolating.
Cross your fingers for progress soon!
As you may know I spent nearly 20 years in Denver. It was a terrific city for me. I loved exploring the desert southwest and really miss the clear blue skies and sunshine. I even met the man of my dreams in the Mile High City. Through April 6 my artwork is back in Denver. My new book, All Sinners Welcome is happily included in Photo Book Works, a national juried exhibition at Abecedarian Gallery in the Santa Fe Arts District. Denver’s Month of Photography is a new event since I left town 10 years ago in June (wow, how time flies!). I wish I could be there to see so many old friends and their fantastic photography. If you happen to be in Denver during the show, please stop by and say hello to Alicia at Abecedarian Gallery. Or, read her blog post about the show here.
Recently, I had the great honor of participating in The Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition, a global book arts’ response to the car bombing of Al-Mutanabbi Street in Baghdad on March 5, 2007.
Beau Beausoleil founded this amazing project as a call to book artists to react to this horrific event. “On March 5th 2007, a car bomb was exploded on al-Mutanabbi Street in Baghdad. Al-Mutanabbi Street is in a mixed Shia-Sunni area. More than 30 people were killed and more than 100 were wounded. Al-Mutanabbi Street, the historic center of Baghdad bookselling, holds bookstores and outdoor bookstalls, cafes, stationery shops, and even tea and tobacco shops. It has been the heart and soul of the Baghdad literary and intellectual community.” Beau teamed up with the also-amazing Sarah Bodman in asking book artists to join the project and further enhance the work of the Coalition by creating work that holds both “memory and future,” exactly what was lost that day. You can learn more about the project here.
My book for this project is titled Pages Reign. It is a miniature painted book (meaning that it is 3 x 3 x 3 inches or less) created in an edition of just four copies. Three are being sent to the project and one for my own archives.
Here’s the text of the poem that I wrote for this book:
When pages reign, freedom reigns.
When pages reign, thought reigns.
When pages reign, words reign.
Words spread. Pages fly.
Freedom rings.
When pages rain, freedom dies.
Bombs blare. Children fear.
Words collide.
When pages rise again, hearts rise.
Freedom rises.
Thought rises.
Words rise.
Pages reign. Pages rise.
Thank you Beau and Sarah and all of the other artists who participated in this project, cheered each other on and created a heart-warming tribute to so many lives and freedoms that were cut much too short.
Whew! It’s been a while. Sadly and maddeningly my web site got hacked back in November. Then, I was just too busy with the gallery to get it fixed. Finally, last week, I called in the big guns. Thanks to my amazingly talented WordPress guru, Marshall, this site is now rested, restored and happily functioning again. From here on out I promise to practice safe WordPressing and to update this blog more often. Thank you for your patience while things were down. So grateful to be back.
A quick teaser shot of my newest in-progress book documenting Highway 99, which runs through the entire state of Oregon. This new book will be on exhibit in Denver very soon. In fact, it needs to ship next week.
This book is volume two of my Hit The Road series covering Highway 99, which runs all the way from Canada to Mexico. The first volume, which you can see here, covered the state of Washington, this one is Oregon and California is due up next. Now, that will be one loooong road trip!
Have a good day,
Laura
Bless This House: Print on Demand Version Cover
I am thrilled that my print on demand book, Bless This House was selected for inclusion in the Cleveland Museum of Art’s exhibition, DIY: Photographers & Books. It is a huge honor to have my work included with so many of my photography idols including Martin Parr, Stephen Shore, Daido Moriyama, Joachim Schmid, Kirk Crippens, and Larry Fink. Also included are two 23 Sandy artists, Bea Nettles and Heidi Neilson. This exhibition is on view now through December 30, 2012. Stop by if you happen to be in the Cleveland area.
Bless this House is a photography project created with Nicole Bowmer documenting the destruction of three trailer parks in Beaverton, Oregon during the depths of the recession. It was a heart-wrenching project to work on for both of us as we watched 247 families lose their homes.
The Cleveland Museum of Art’s exhibition web site says:
A new golden age of the photobook has dawned, thanks to digital printing technology and web-based distribution services that allow rapid, inexpensive production of books in quantities from one copy to thousands. This exhibition is the first museum show to focus on the impact of print-on-demand publishing on contemporary photographic practice. Instead of images on the wall, the room will be dominated by a long table where a visual banquet of more than 100 photobooks will await the visitor. Several examples of historic and unique books will be in cases, but for most of the volumes, touching, reading, and re-reading will be encouraged. The books will be by regional, national, and international artists. Plans include a computer station where visitors can try their own hand at producing a photobook.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about “poetry as lubricant.” Sitting down to write a poem is a great way to get the creative juices flowing. Some people journal or write morning pages (as in The Artist’s Way). I like to start a fresh studio day with a poem to clear the decks, leave the to-do list behind and go deep inside myself. Focus. Clarify. Meditate on words.
A few years ago I took a poetry class through Portland Community College. It was an eye opener for this former word-phobic artist. I will never think of myself as a writer or a poet, but writing words is no longer a dreaded chore. For this class assignment the teacher asked the class to look around the classroom and call out the names of three objects in the room. The first three words called out were: baseball, mascara, crayons. Now go make a poem that uses those three words. Here’s what I came up with during that class:
Urban Decay © Laura Russell. Click on this photo to see a larger image. Note the baby crib inside the front door.
Urban Decay
There, on the porch of the pink one,
the sun shines through the stained glass,
red like a ruby.
There, on the porch of the brown one,
a baseball left behind as they
rush into night, mascara-smeared faces
dripping like soft fruit in a juicer.
No more crayons, no more trains,
no more baby cribs. It’s all gone.
Gone. The soul of these houses
as they burn, smoke pouring from
the windows and doors.
Gone. Soon. The doors and windows
and pipes and siding, all stripped,
all sold. Gone.
How much more can we stand?
How much longer can these empty shells stand?
How can you stand to just drive by
when the future of your factory town is gone.
________________________________
This poem ended up one of two in my Urban Decay artist book, which is about my home town of Saginaw, Michigan. You can see more images from this book here.
I am very excited that two of my newest artist books were included in the recently released 1,000 Artists’ Books, published by Quarry books. This seemingly gargantuan effort was compiled by Sandra Salamony and Peter and Donna Thomas. 
I just can’t imagine wrangling that many artists and artworks. The book includes so many artists who are friends and a good number are artists we represent in the gallery.
My books included were Good Will & Salvation and Hit The Road, two of my newest titles.
Today in the studio I am struggling with structural questions for my newest book, Hit The Road II. This is the Oregon book in the series, the first covered the state of Washington. So far I’ve made three models and nothing is quite “it” yet.
My plan this afternoon is to shut off the email, silence the phone and immerse myself in the 1,000 (make that 998!) incredibly inspiring artist books featured in this treasure chest of a book that will surely be inspiration for years to come.
Take care,
Laura
I have been photographing brick wall ghost signs for nearly 15 years now. Finding these beauties is much harder in Oregon than it was in Colorado. Back in that sunny, dry, high-altitude state, brick wall ghost signs seemed to last forever due to climate, lead-based paint and plenty of brick walls. Here in Oregon most buildings are made with wood siding and with all of the rain we get here ghost signs don’t have a chance.
My favorite ghost signs were painted back in the days before the concept of being political correct entered our awareness. Today we could never talk about “Whisky for Medicinal Use” or “Indian Traders.” Even advertising explosives just doesn’t work these days.
Here is the design for a new card I created using some of my favorite wall dog signs. A small project for a light day in the studio.
Day 1 in my new studio. I’m so happy to have a quiet space to work. After five years of working like mad on the gallery I’m finally setting up a dedicated studio space—outside the house/gallery. This space is only temporary. 101 days to be exact. But, this is going to be a fantastic summer. I have a whole list of new books to work on plus I need to finish binding the editions of my last three books, All Sinners Welcome, Good Will & Salvation and Bless This House. The gallery has kept me so busy that i just haven’t had time to bind. Plus, at home I just don’t have the space. My studio was in the back room of the gallery, which makes it very hard to make books, what with cleaning up all the time so I can open the gallery.
Today’s project is a simple one. Something fun and easy to prime the creative pump, so to speak. I made four different bookmarks for Sarah Bodman’s bookmark project at UWE in England. If you came to the gallery last year and picked up a free bookmark you are familiar with this project. We had bookmarks by librarians for several months and they were a huge hit.
I designed four different bookmarks: neon signs from Lakeside, the amazing amusement park in Denver from my Lakeside book (which is soon to be release in a soft-cover version). Plus versions using images of meat in the landscape, ghost signs from my Colorado Wall Dogs project and “Goodwill Girls.” Now today, time to print them all and ship them off across the pond.
So happy to be creating again! Wish me luck.
